


Confession

by hannahrhen



Series: Good, Giving, Game [6]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: 30 Day OTP Porn Challenge, Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-09
Updated: 2013-05-09
Packaged: 2017-12-10 21:37:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/790422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannahrhen/pseuds/hannahrhen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony thinks telling Bruce about Loki, about what they're doing, about the list, will be easier.</p><p>He's wrong.</p><p>(Expanding day eleven in the "Good, Giving, Game" 'verse: "explaining relationship to disapproving third party")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confession

**Author's Note:**

> Day 11 of the OTP Porn Challenge list: Explaining your unconventional relationship to a disapproving third party. This follows on directly from the day 11 scene in the main story, so may not make sense unless you've read it.

Loki ducked back, behind the screen, as the phone number dialed on the tablet. Tony knew Bruce wouldn’t recognize the number, would get a weird caller ID, or no caller ID, but, given the circumstances, would answer it any--

“Hello?” The doctor’s soft voice was wavery with something--fatigue, concern, wariness.

All of it.

Tony felt like shit.

“Bruce?” he said, projecting the voice of extreme reassurance he’d tried on Pepper over the years. “It’s Tony.”

Hoped it worked better on Bruce than it did on Pepper. He heard the shudder of an exhale, and, yeah. Goddamn it.

“Tony--oh, my God. Are you-- Are you okay? Where are you?”

Tony glanced up at Loki, who was motionless across the room, arms over his chest. He wore that guarded expression that always was a precursor to a disturbing change in his mood. “I don’t know where I am, exactly, Bruce, but I’m okay.”

The roll of words, speeding up and uncontrolled from his volatile friend, were a knife in his gut. “Geez, Tony--we’re all--everyone’s looking for you. Pepper-- We--we didn’t know--”

“I know, Bruce, really--it’s okay. I’m not hurt. I’m okay.” He heard the hollow note in his voice and winced.

There was a pause. Shit.

“... We know who took you, Tony.”

Tony looked up again, followed Loki as the god moved to the chair next to the dresser and sat. Offered Tony his own best small, false smile. Gave a “please, continue” wave with his hand. 

Never shit a shitter, Tony thought, barely suppressing an eye roll. You think the God of Lies would know that.

“Yeah, well,” he started absently, still focused on Loki, who crossed one leg over another, rested his bent wrists on a knee. Looked away casually as if the comforter, the rug--as if anything else in the sparse room held his interest.

Tony had been too obvious, of course, and he heard a laugh over the line. “Is he there with you?” It was the bad kind of laugh, hopeless, the one Natasha had described when she told them the Kolkata story over beer one night. She had waited until a night Bruce was out. “I don’t even know why I’m asking--he’s right there, isn’t he? Watching you.”

And Bruce sounded--fuck. Loki sat up straighter in the chair, and he still had a fragment of a smile in the corner of his mouth.

Why did Tony think calling Bruce would be easier? Steve would already be yelling at him by now--wanting him to feel the shame for all his moral failings. Something he could deflect much easier than this guilt insinuating itself under his defenses. 

Bruce, meanwhile, was internalizing, and internalizing meant--

“Look, Brucie--Bruce, look,” Tony jumped in, hearing the man’s breath grow heavier, faster. “Can you--will you get on video for me?”

There was a moment where Tony already thought it was too late. Then he heard a confused, “Yeah--oh, yeah. Okay.” And fumbling.

Tony hit the video icon on the tablet, and a moment later, there was Bruce, in living color--but thankfully still a reassuring fluorescent-sallow. “Bruce,” Tony started. “Look at me. I’m fine. He’s not hurting me. I swear he’s not hurting me.”

Yeah, that was the right move. He could see the tension melt from Bruce’s shoulders and face as his eyes darted all over Tony’s image. Evaluating. Assessing. Being a scientist--and a friend.

Tony kept his own eyes on the screen--being seen to look obviously at Loki right now would not end well for Bruce or--he looked into the background--Tony’s fucking workshop. Great.

“You’ve been gone for two weeks, Tony. We had no idea--you’re really okay.” The tone had gone slightly wheedling, Bruce wanting to believe it so bad.

“Five by five, babe, really,” he emphasized. “And I’ll be back soon--a couple of weeks, I think. Loki just, umm, wanted help with something.” Eh, the hesitation was not smart, because Bruce would hone in on--

“‘Help.’”

Cautiously: “Yeah.”

Bruce’s patented confused/frustrated frown appeared. “With what?”

“A ... well.” Oh shit, more hesitation. Not good. “An experiment. He’s conducting an experiment.” He _wouldn’t-wouldn’t-wouldn’t_ look at Loki, but he could have kicked the god in the face for the barely audible snort.

“Tony,” and now Bruce was practicing his breathing exercises, “I need you to give me all the information right now, before you-know-who makes an appearance and smashes this goddamned phone.” By the end, he was approaching high-blood-pressure territory. “To start.”

Okay, fine. “He has this list. It’s ... Oh, Jesus, Bruce, please don’t judge me, I get that enough from Rogers, and I just can’t see that look on your face, okay?”

“No promises,” Bruce huffed, and his voice took on a frightening calm. “What’s on the list, Tony?”

Errgghh. Okay. The words rushed out: “It’s kind of a sex list.” And that? Surprised Bruce. Eyebrows shot up, and the phone clearly jiggled a little, Bruce's face shifting in the window.

“A ... a sex list.”

“Yeah ... um ... things he wanted to do,” Tony pressed on stupidly. “Like ... different positions. Or, you know, kinks.”

Silence. So Tony kept going. “You know, uh, thirty kinks to try, and Loki was kind of curious, and, well, he needed a partner, and--”

And the tension shot back into Bruce’s body like an electrical charge and--fuck!--Tony could see the wash of green surging into his skin. Words spit like pure rage: “ _He’s raping you._ ”

Out of the corner of his eye, Tony saw Loki push out of the chair, eyes hard and furious, and, _holy fuck_ , the tension from both sides practically vibrated over the distance.

“No, shit! NO! He’s not--” And then he did look up at Loki. Yet another hair-trigger soul to manage. “No, you don’t move. _YOU DON’T MOVE_ ,” he ordered in that direction, pointing with a stern finger, which just-- _Fuck!_ Back to the screen: “Bruce! He’s not raping me. _He’s not raping me._ ” He took his own deep breath. Setting an example. Calming this fucking situation down. “He asked me. Okay, yeah, there might have been some mild arm-twisting in the beginning--no! You stay there!” he bitched at the god. “You have caused enough fucking trouble.”

“So he _is_ right there.” Bruce, quieter, was tamping it down, but the risk factor was still high.

Tony took a breath, kept an eye on Loki, who clearly wasn’t going to sit back down anytime soon. In for a penny: “Yeah, well--this is one of the things on his list.”

He glanced back down at Bruce to see a true double-take. “Wait, what?” Bruce demanded, “What is?”

Tony shrugged. “Someone disapproving finding out about our relationship.”

“Your--”

Waved a hand. “No, _nooo_ ... it’s just a word, Bruce. Just ... someone finding out what we’re doing. It’s day eleven. On the list.”

“Tony,” Bruce started, and Tony watched with alarm as Bruce pounded his own forehead with a fist. “You are fucking Loki. For thirty days. And this is day eleven.” He huffed. “I’m your goddamned day eleven.”

Oh, more swearing. Huh. “Yeah, well--when you say it like that--” 

“Stark.” And Loki was checking into this convo--great.

“No, again,” he pointed at Loki with that same finger of shame. “You are nothing but trouble. The things you have fucking talked me into doing-- _GOD._ Just,” the finger turned into a frustrated shooing motion, “stay over there and keep quiet.”

When he looked back down at Bruce, trying on his most lopsided, charming smile of getting away with shit, Bruce still had his fist pressed against his forehead, his eyes squeezed shut in concentration. No green, though. Thankfully. But lots of controlled breathing.

“Bruce,” he said softly. “It’s consensual. Enough. Yeah, he was pretty persuasive at first--one of his nicknames is Silvertongue, for fuck’s sake.” And the look he shot at the touchy god was softer, now, maybe a little. A resigned smile to soothe the feathers. “He hasn’t hurt me. I’m fine. Getting a little tired of his room, but ... “ He sighed, turned his attention back to Bruce. “I’m fine. I’m okay.”

Bruce visibly struggled for another minute, wouldn’t take his hand away from his face, but clearly--hopefully--no longer in imminent danger of a Hulk-out. He breathed in through his nose a few times, puffed the air back out. Then, as Tony moved to sit down on the bed, Loki off to his side, now unseen, Bruce finally spoke.

“Tony,” and the brown eyes suddenly staring at him, inspecting him, unleashed the guilt again. Bruce was the goddamned nicest of all of them. Better than Tony deserved as a friend most days. “You’ve been gone for two weeks. We have Loki on camera, fucking--” And holy shit, Bruce was really cursing. “--teleporting away with you. Thor insists you’re fine for some damned reason, and that has to count for something, I guess. But there are a lot of--a lot of people looking for you. And you’re telling me--”

The view of Bruce was obscured suddenly, the phone in his hand jostled, pulled away with some dull thuds and fits of static. After a few incomplete shots of his beautiful workshop, the viewscreen restored, and Tony got--

Oh, fuck.

“You’re telling us you’re spending a month fucking Loki. And that he’s going to let you go after.” Natasha’s bright red hair and pissed-off face filled the screen.

Tony shrugged. “Yeah.”

Her words were clipped, efficient. Lacking all the crashes and swells of horrible _feelings_ he’d gotten from Bruce. “Thor swears you’re safe--and for some reason, Captain Rogers is starting to think so, too.”

Fuck--what? But that worked. “Yeah, okay,” he said, hoping the surprise wasn’t too obvious.

“So, this is pretty straightforward. You’re either lying, maybe under duress, maybe brainwashed, and you can believe we will find Loki and, if it is within my power, tear from him every last day of his immortal life ... “

Off to the side, Loki shook his head, projecting an insincere amusement over a posture that was still wired with tension.

“Or,” Natasha continued, “you’re telling the truth. And I will do the same goddamned thing to you, Stark. Believe that, too.”

Tony groaned. “Natasha--”

“We’re done. Goodbye, Stark.” But she didn’t hang up. “And, for what it’s worth, I hope you’re telling the truth, Tony.” Another pause. “We all do.”

“Bye, Natasha. And, uh, hug Bruce for me, would ya?” He got a disdainful snort in reply (but suspected it would earn at least a pat on the shoulder for his other, traumatized teammate).

He tapped the end-call button, hung onto the tablet until Loki materialized right in front of him, holding out a hand out for it. Tony peered up at him from the edge of the bed, surveying that still-unreadable face. Gave over the device.

“I apologize, Stark, for putting you through that,” was what he got, and Loki’s somber tone turned teasing. “It was more absurd than I could have imagined. With such theatrics, it appears your Hulk missed his calling.”

Yeah, that was the fucking wrong thing to say, and Tony felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “You,” Tony began slowly, “are in no position to be offended by this. By any of it. You deserve his suspicion. You deserve worse, actually. You--” He cut himself off, because what in God’s name was he doing?

 _Fuck this._ He kicked back onto the bed, eyes off Loki and no intention of looking back, of continuing. Grabbed the book off the side table and pointedly thumbed it open as he leaned against the headboard. “Day eleven is done,” he said quietly, not looking up. “See you tomorrow.” His anger built even further when he heard the shake in his own voice.

A motionless moment passed before he heard Loki at the door, the creak of the hinges. Then, more silence--and he realized he hadn’t heard the door close. Yet.

Looked up.

Okay, yeah, the door was still open, Loki on the other side of it, back to Tony.

“Forget something?” Tony barked.

Loki turned his head back slightly. “Put the book down, Stark, and come with me.” A pause. “I thought I might show you the rest of my rooms.”

Yeah. Tony knew when he was being thrown a bone. 

He caught that shit anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, "five by five" is a Faith nod. And AO3 needs a "That Escalated Quickly" tag!
> 
> Thanks for reading, as always! Find me on tumblr at [hannarhen.tumblr.com](hannarhen.tumblr.com).


End file.
